A review by orionmerlin
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Never Let Me Go — A Bleakly Polite Nothingburger 
You ever read a book and think, this could’ve been devastating if it had a pulse? That’s Never Let Me Go in a nutshell: a story about children raised to be slaughtered for their organs… and somehow, it’s emotionally flatter than a slice of white bread left in the rain. 
Characters: 6/10 
Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are less “haunting” and more “half-charged Roombas of feeling.” Kathy narrates with the emotional range of someone describing a tax seminar. Tommy's default setting is inarticulate rage tantrum, and Ruth is the only one with a flicker of fire—but that fire mostly manifests as teen drama and low-stakes manipulation. 
These are supposed to be the emotional core of the story, but they never push past “conceptually sad.” It’s all subdued glances and clipped sentences and “I suppose we knew.” Their arcs aren’t arcs—they’re long, slow descents into resignation. Which might be the point, sure, but that doesn’t make it interesting to read.  
Atmosphere / Setting: 7/10 
Look, Ishiguro knows how to make you feel vaguely unsettled. The world of Hailsham and its washed-out post-childhood countryside is textbook Crapsaccharine World—sweet on the surface, existential rot underneath. The oppressive quiet is effective... for a while. 
But once the initial fog settles in, it never lifts. The setting doesn’t expand, it doesn’t evolve, it just… lingers. We’re given a dystopia with life-saving clone tech, but the world beyond three locations (school, cottages, hospice) might as well not exist. The potential for worldbuilding is huge. Ishiguro just doesn’t seem interested in it.  
Writing Style: 7.5/10 
Yes, the prose is clean. Polished. Controlled. But in the way a sterile operating room is—technically impressive, but emotionally cold. Ishiguro is very good at writing numb characters. Unfortunately, reading their numb interior monologue for 280 pages is like wading through lukewarm molasses. 
The narration filters everything through Kathy’s hazy lens of memory and repression. Which works thematically, sure. But it also turns even high-stakes moments into murmured anecdotes. "Tommy screamed. I suppose it was upsetting." That’s the book’s emotional tone, front to back.  
Plot: 5/10 
Ah, yes. The plot. Or should I say... the gentle downhill drift toward death? There’s no momentum. No real conflict. Just a series of increasingly bleak reveals that are neither shocking nor cathartic, because the characters are too emotionally sedated to care. 
The whole thing hinges on the “deferral” myth—a sad little Hope Spot meant to break your heart. But by the time it shows up, the plot has already flatlined. Even the final confrontation with Madame and Miss Emily—the one time the characters try to do something—is a polite tea-time disappointment that ends with a resigned shrug. 
Intrigue: 4.5/10 
This book is a black hole for narrative tension. The premise sounds juicy—clones being raised for slaughter! Ethical horror! A love triangle!—but in execution, it’s like watching paint dry on the wall of a hospice wing. Once the early hints drop, there's nothing left to discover. Just page after page of whispered sadness and cassette tape nostalgia. 
And honestly? The romantic intrigue is tepid at best. The relationships are underbaked, the stakes are non-existent, and any curiosity about the outside world gets smothered under another round of wistful flashbacks. 
Logic / Relationships: 5.5/10 
Okay, let’s talk world logic. This is a society that depends on clones for organ harvesting… but doesn’t track them? Doesn’t enforce rules? Just hopes they’ll dutifully report for disembowelment because of... vague psychological conditioning? 
The narrative leans hard on Conditioned to Accept Horror, but never shows how that conditioning works. We’re just supposed to accept that these emotionally and physically capable young adults never once tried to escape. Not one? Ever? 
And the relationships? Mostly vibes and shared trauma. Kathy and Tommy have zero chemistry until the book tells us they do. Ruth’s manipulations add a flicker of conflict, but even those feel tame—like middle school squabbling with higher stakes. It’s all so... low-effort emotional scaffolding.
Enjoyment: 5/10 
Did I enjoy this? Not really. I respected parts of it. I admired the structure. But mostly, I kept waiting for the book to punch me in the gut—and instead, it held my hand and whispered, “It’s okay to be sad, but not too loud about it.” 
By the end, I felt drained but not devastated. Like I’d walked through a funeral where the deceased was someone I’d never met. It wants to be emotionally shattering, but it doesn’t do the work to earn it.  
Final Score: 5.71 → Rounded to 5.75/10 
A muted dystopia that confuses emotional restraint for depth, and narrative sedation for literary power. 
If you like your tragedies soft-spoken, your worldbuilding skeletal, and your protagonists too polite to survive, Never Let Me Go might be your thing. But if you're looking for fire, rebellion, or even a single moment of catharsis? Keep walking. These clones sure did—right into the donation center without complaint.
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